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About Me

I literally have a checkered past. My ancestors include African slaves and Native Americans, as well as members of America's most prominent colonial and antebellum-era families. That's why America's history is very personal to me. My family surnames: Birdsong, Bowie, Brayboy, Bryant, Gilbert, Gines, Johnson, LeJay, Long, Manson, Sanford

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Five Things

I've been tagged by Denise Olson of Moultrie Creek, and Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings Thanks (I think), Denise and Randy! So I have to disclose five things about myself that you might not already know, then tag five other folks. This meme goes back a bit and, of course, in many, many, directions. Worldwide Web, indeed!

Okay, here we go:

1. I learned German the hard way (or, according to most linguists, the easy way). I went to a German ("German" as in it was actually in Germany!) kindergarten at age 5, where only German was spoken. Now, almost fifty years later, I've forgotten most of it (which was about as easy as learning it).

2. I lived for about a year in a 400 year old thatched roof cottage in a small town in Norfolk, England. I rented the place in July, 1981--around November it occurred to me that central heat was not a 16th century amenity.

3. I would do anything to be back in radio--commercial radio as it was in the 1960's and '70's. I'd be a morning guy on a huge AM rocker like KQV or WHB or KFRC or WLS. Heck, I'd even be an overnight guy on a little bitty central California station like the old KMBY in Monterey (hey, wait a minute--been there, done that--KMBY Monterey overnight, that is).

4. I started college intending to be an astrophysicist.

5. I may be the only genea-blogger who's actually played professional baseball. I use the term "played" in the least meaningful way. When I was 14, I won a newspaper contest to become the batboy for the Albuquerque Dodgers, then the Class AA Texas League affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I spent the entire season with the team--an adolescent fantasy come true! Our manager was the former All-star catcher Del Crandall. We had a galaxy of future major league stars that summer: Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Billy Buckner, Charlie Hough, Von Joshua, to name a few. Despite this apparent surfeit of talent, we had a lousy season, finishing dead last in the league's western division behind the despicable El Paso Sunkings. On September 2, 1969, the last day of the season, in a meaningless game with the said Sunkings at Albuquerque Sports Stadium, in the ninth inning, when all hope was gone as we trailed the loathsome fellows from the bordertown, Del Crandall ordered me into the game as a pinch-runner at first base. There were two outs already as I took a generous lead off the bag. The next Dodger batter (wish I could recall who it was) hit a hard ground ball to the El Paso shortstop and I was forced out (of the game, the season, and pro baseball) at second base. The ball game was over. Now there was work to do for a batboy. As I jogged off the field, I caught a glimpse of my dad beaming from his seat behind home plate. The last game of the season was the first (and only one) he'd been to; he had returned just hours earlier from a different season in a different hemisphere--a place called Vietnam.

1 comment:

I had a summer camp with the Chargers in 1963 - got to slop toilets and make beds. My best memory is going hunting with LB Frank Buncom in the early AM - a wonderful man. Frank died of a heart attack in 1967.